Moments of genuine empathy and connection between the characters of "Kandahar" are scarce. The movie is filled with haunting scenes portraying the utter abjection of Afghanistan's people, who are exiled in their own homeland. Landmines, prosthetic legs, machine guns and Arabic diction loom over daily life, branding both individuals and groups with their respective patterns of violence.
The madressah scene early on in the movie portrays just this: the child out-of-sync with the group's Quranic recital is dismissed by the Mullah at a moment's notice. He is given two attempts to improve his diction and after showing no improvement (not that anyone explains how he could improve) is casually kicked out of the monastery. I would have cheered for him (who would want to live like that!) if it weren't for the next scene in which the boy's mother begs the Mullah to take her son back, fearing she is too destitute to feed him on her own. The Mullah just walks on, no flinching, not even glancing at the woman throwing herself at his feet. And this is where the real tragedy of the Afghan national experience lies: the complete absence of human empathy and connection in a place where material security is an almost a forgone conclusion, and where emotional comfort is the only comfort one can hope for. Afghanistan is tragic precisely because a person cannot count on fellow human beings to understand his plight.
Of course, the utter abjection of the Afghan national experience is one reason for this tragic absence of empathy in social relations. The general state of abjection in everyday life numbs the individual to the plight of any people he encounters. The movie, however, suggest a deeper reason for this lack of human empathy. The black doctor's comparison of the beard and the burqa is relevant here. The idea that both the beard and the burqa shroud their individual wearers is crucial for the movie. For people have become so used to viewing others through their commitments to certain cultural symbols that the immediate emotional reality of the person, apparent only when the veils of culture have all been lifted, is not even considered anymore. Thus, the lack of empathy in social relations is produced by the strict boundaries of dominant culture, which deny the individual any means of engaging with his fellows on a deeper, more immediate and emotional level.
Of course, the utter abjection of the Afghan national experience is one reason for this tragic absence of empathy in social relations. The general state of abjection in everyday life numbs the individual to the plight of any people he encounters. The movie, however, suggest a deeper reason for this lack of human empathy. The black doctor's comparison of the beard and the burqa is relevant here. The idea that both the beard and the burqa shroud their individual wearers is crucial for the movie. For people have become so used to viewing others through their commitments to certain cultural symbols that the immediate emotional reality of the person, apparent only when the veils of culture have all been lifted, is not even considered anymore. Thus, the lack of empathy in social relations is produced by the strict boundaries of dominant culture, which deny the individual any means of engaging with his fellows on a deeper, more immediate and emotional level.
Your claim that the characters have become rather lacking in empathy cannot be argued with; however it is difficult to say that it has its basis in culture alone is difficult to accept. For one thing, the STRICT adherence to religion doesnt seem like a cultural/religious element so much as an imposed state of being what with the Taliban infiltration and threat to the people should they deviate from religious ideas. As Nafsa says, this is not the Afghanistan she recalls from her childhood. It is one that has been imposed upon by a foreign party that has subverted its own culture for theirs in an overwriting of the initial one. That doesnt mean the former culture has now died out either. The doctor insists on risking his life to provide aid for the natives in a gesture that is empathetic at the least. The mullah rejecting could be doing as the foreign party insisting on its strict culture over the former; he could also be doing so because there are countless others to cater for and one who cannot carry on the work at a time when work is scarce shouldnt be given the opportunity. We saw the countless students reciting the Quran-- so many they were barely fitting the mosque. It is a state of survival of the fittest and not one that applies to a culture so much as a universal reaction to a position of scarcity coinciding with multitudes to serve and provide for. Hence I cant agree with your point that it is culture that reigns as a suppressive force of the basic possibility of emotional engagement.
ReplyDeleteMy point was not that culture itself prevents the possibility of human engagement. I was attempting to argue that it is the way people 'see' others which is the problem. As long as people see others in terms of their commitments to certain cultural symbols, the possibility for empathy can never be fully realized. If I can't see past the Ahmedi's religion, there is no way I will notice the living, breathing human behind what he represents within culture.
ReplyDelete*behind the image of what he represents within culture.
ReplyDelete